


A Practical Guide To Introspection

by melmonella



Category: A Practical Guide to Evil - erraticerrata
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 04:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17932469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melmonella/pseuds/melmonella
Summary: After the flying fortress of Akua Sahelian was brought down, Catherine gets hit with a mindwhammy that turns her introspectiveness up to 11, and realises just how much she has to change about herself. But will the time be on her side? Three short months remain until the 11th crusade hits Callow, and Heavens are bringing their best game this time.





	1. I Haven't Read The Original: A Helping Guide

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to erraticerrata for writing the glorious piece of fiction that serves as the inspiration for this fic. A fair amount of text in the beginning chapters is taken from the original work, though this would become less and less as timelines diverge.
> 
> Support the original creator!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suppose that you have dropped the original story before the end of book 3, or just haven't read it at all. Could you still read this fic? Yes indeed! Here is a short list of things that have happened in books 1 through 3, to help you catch up. This fic continues right after chapter 69, book 3. If you are up to date on what has happened up until that point, just skip straight to the next chapter.

**Book 1**

Catherine Foundling lives in the Kingdom Of Callow, a Good kingdom that has been occupied by the Dread Empire of Praes for the last two decades. She is an orphan in Liesse with ambitions of reforming her kingdom from the inside. In a fit of luck, she is granted magical powers - called “Name” - by the Black Knight, one of the conquerors of her kingdom, who takes her on as an apprentice. While studying to become better at utilising her powers, she meets three sets of adversaries that would prefer to see her dead. First, three other “claimants” to the same Name, and thus the same magic powers. Second, the Heiress - a person with a different Name, who wants to be the apprentice to the Black Knight herself. And finally, a Lone Swordsman, who seeks to free Catherine’s kingdom with a classic rebellion. Catherine kills the first group (and thus gets the full powers of her Name), almost kills the Swordsman but lets him live in order to use his rebellion for career advancement, and Heiress gets away.

After this, Black Knight sends Catherine to an officer academy as he has business to attend to in the capital and doesn’t have the time to train her personally. In the officer school, Catherine handily achieves victory in her first battle by exploiting her unique advantage in strength due to Name magic. Due to unrelated reasons, she is invited to attend the imperial court, where Heiress tricks her into betting her future ownership of an army on a wargame between five armies. During the war games, Catherine overcomes her opponents with trickery and sequential betrayal of different armies. Finally, she agrees on a draw with the commander of the last army (Juniper, a brilliant strategist) by promising her status of a commander of her future legion.

**Book 2**

Lone Swordsman’s rebellion begins, and Catherine (in command of her new legion, alongside Juniper) is sent to stop it. Along the way, several things happen. First, two Named join her party. First is Hakram, (Named the Adjutant), an orc officer that helped her a lot during the war games. Second is Masego (the Apprentice), son of Warlock - an old friend and colleague of Black Knight. Then, she meets Lone Swordsman once again, who is attempting to assassinate Warlock with his party of Heroes, consisting of Wandering Bard, Bumbling Conjurer, The Hunter and Thief. Catherine, alongside her friends, manages to stop it. In the fight, Bumbling Conjurer is killed by Warlock, The Hunter gets captured, while the rest manage to escape.

Continuing on their way, Catherine’s legion is faced with an army of rebels lead by Shining Prince who opts to challenge Catherine to a duel, one on one, instead of letting the armies fight it out. She shoots him in the throat with a crossbow instead. In the battle that follows Catherine manages to rout the rebel army, and continues to the city of Marchford. Unfortunately, Heiress releases a demon of corruption nearby. Demons are incredibly dangerous creatures which have wide area effects. Demon of corruption, in particular, “corrupts” environment, people, and in general everything it touches, mutating everything in various ways. Animals and people turn into mutants under control of the demon, land turns corrupted, and so on. Effect is contagious - every corrupted thing spreads corruption even further. Heroes are capable of harming and killing demons, while everyone else has a lot of trouble with that.

Catherine and her friends manage to survive the demon, with the help of Archer - a hero who arrives to take custody of Hunter, and Hunter himself, who is forced to join the fight by Archer. Unfortunately, Hunter dies in the process. At the last moment, Heiress shows up, and calls the demon back into a magical flagpole she has. Catherine and Heiress officially join forces to chase the rebels down to the last city they have under control, while unofficially attempting to kill one another.

As it turns out, rebels are attempting to summon an Angel in the city of Liesse. Angels are almost as bad as demons, except themed around repentance, contrition and such, instead of corruption, madness and death. When this particular Angel comes into reality, everyone around Liesse would become mind controlled into starting a new Crusade against the evil nations. Naturally, Heiress finds this to be a perfect time to betray Catherine openly, and summons a bunch of devils(not demons) to kill everyone in the city. In the fighting that follows Catherine kills the Lone Swordsman, prevents the summoning of the angel, while Heiress manages to maneuver her way into avoiding death. As a result, Catherine is given province of Marchford as her domain, and is put on the ruling council of Callow - a new government of Callow - as one of the key members. Heiress maneuvers her way into ruling Liesse.

**Book 3**

Book 3 begins with Catherine doing her best to rule Callow, which isn’t very good. Despite managing to secure a majority vote on the ruling council, she can’t seem to manage to establish any stable policy within Callow. However, not all is well, as Winter fey invade Marchford, and Catherine goes back to her territory to investigate.

Catherine, Masego and Hakram perform a sortie into the part of the city which contains the snowstorm surrounding the new portal into Arcadia, and, sure enough, end up stuck there. As it turns out, Arcadia follows the tenets of story logic closer than the normal world, which Catherine and the party(now with Archer who encounters them at just the right time) use to sneak into Skade - the “capital” of Winter fey. In the capital, they try to find a way to ensure Winter would stop attacking Marchford permanently. Unfortunately for them, King of Winter has his own plans in motion. Catherine is invited to a party, where she is introduced as “Princess Sulia of the Summer Fey” - someone is clearly trying to trap her somehow. One thing leads to another, and Catherine uses a story of patricide to claim she is a daughter of Duke of Violent Squalls in order to kill him and take his power. After the fight, King of WInter - biggest and baddest fey in all of Winter - shows up, and has a chat with Catherine. He takes her heart, replacing it with a piece of ice, and says he will give it back if she wins a war against Summer fey in six months. He also names her The Duchess of Moonless Nights, granting her the powers of the fey.

Returning back to the real world, our heroes find out they were gone for three months, as time flows differently in Arcadia, and Callow is on fire. Akua has started a rebellion against Praes, Summer has invaded in the south, and Daoine may or may not be rebelling. Catherine immediately sets out to fix various problems around the country, which is helped by her Winter powers. In particular, she can make a Gate between normal world and Arcadia, travel through Arcadia, make a second Gate at the exit, and thus arrive at her destination in a quarter of the time it would have taken her if she traveled by roads. First, Catherine swings by the capital and quickly convinces Thief(who stole the entire treasury) to join her side, and then continues on to the duchy of Daoine. There, she convinces Duchess Kendall to join her in her fight against Diabolist(Akua, previously Heiress) and the Summer fey, since Diabolist stole something important from Daoine.

Together they set out through Arcadia towards the center of the fey invasion, and face off against the armies of Summer lead by Princess Sullia herself. Catherine is forced to call in a favor with a major Winter fey - Prince of Nightfall - in order to get his warband of fey to act as supporting forces, but by promising him seven crowns of seven mortal rulers she secures that alliance fairly easily. In the middle of the fight, Catherine’s party confronts Princess Sullia, Thief steals her sun (a literal sun, Sullia can summon a small one), and the party puts Sullia herself in a containment ward.

Finally arriving at Dormer, where the center of the invading Summer forces was located, Catherine storms the city, slaughtering summer fey until she arrives at the castle, that stands in the center. Once there, she summons the Queen of Summer, and forces her to take the hand of King of Winter in marriage by backing her into a corner: Catherine holds the sun, her allies are about to breach the walls of the capital of Summer, and she beat Summer armies in the normal world. Queen of Summer can not refuse, and so Summer and Winter end, united into one force. So ends the war of Summer on Callow.

But Winter does not end. Catherine still remained the Duchess of Winter, and since Winter King is no more, she has inherited the whole thing. Masego barely keeps her alive throughout the transition, making a scaffolding around her soul to keep it from imploding from the stress. Yet even having survived that ordeal brings Catherine no rest - Akua is finally on the move.

As soon as Catherine wakes up after the battle, Akua contacts her via a magical mirror. Mutual threats are exchanged, as Akua unveils that she has turned one of the cities - Liesse - into a flying fortress, and can turn every person within that city into undead soldiers if need be, and tells Catheirne she can prevent that by swearing loyalty to Akua. Catheirne punches the mirror in response, breaking it. Only thing that remains it to gather her forces and chase down wherever Akua will end up landing. Along the way there, she reunites with Black and his legions. Nature of the item Akua stole from the Deoraithe is likewise revealed: it is an enormous gestalt of the souls of all deoraithe soldiers that died in the last millenia, and it was previously used to provide power to the Watch – a special forces division of Deoraithe army, with powers akin to minor Named.

After they have located Liesse, a battle ensues. Legionary forces under combined control of Catherine and Black Knight were less numerous than the defenders, but better trained in siege tactics, and with support from eight combat-capable Named in total - Squire(Catherine), Hierophant(Masego), Adjutant(Hakram), Thief(Vivienne), Archer(Indriani), Black Knight(Amadeus), Warlock(Wekesa) and Asassin. On the other hand, defenders of Liesse had warded defences, and were lead by a single Named – Diabolist.

Seeing that she is utterly screwed in a straight fight, Diabolist resorts to the time honored villanous tradition fo running away, and hides the whole city in a pocket dimension, entrance to which now lies in the middle of a fort constructed outside the city. At the same time, she opens an enormous permanent portal to Hell right in the middle of legionary forces. Her side also releases three separate demons, which proceed to sow more chaos. While Warlock is trying to close the Hellgate, Hierophant is trying to contain the demons, and Adjutant is assaulting the more mundane defences that remain on the field, Catherine and Black head towards the portal leading to Liesse in order to personally put down the Diabolist once and for all.

The city itself is filled with thousands of undead, but such minor threats do not interrupt two seasoned Named. Black separates from Catherine, and heads off to do something of his own devising. Catherine, meanwhile, makes her way to the palace where Akua no doubt lies in hiding. Fighting her way through numerous foes and traps, she finally confronts the villain, and manages to almost beat her. However, she makes a mistake: by leading Akua into Arcadia she gained increased powers (due to still being part-fey), but at the cost of opening herself up to narrative shenanigans, which are stronger in Arcadia. Akua thus manages to get a hold on the scaffolding Hierophant constructed around Catherine's soul, thus giving her perfect control over everything Catherine's body does.

Thus bound, Catherine and Akua make their way back to the real world, where Akua orders Catherine to stab what looks like naked and bound Black Knight. She does so, revealing that this was Assassin all along: his body dissolves into ash, and the real Black Knight calls Akua on a magical intercom, showing her that he has captured her father, and is holding him hostage. In return for "letting her father go" Black Knight asks three questions, which Akua answers truthfully. Her father is set free...only to be filled by arrows as soon as he exits the door of the room. Black kept his promise, to the letter.

This distraction, coupled with Thief suddenly appearing and stealing Akua's binding, gives Catherine enough of a control to rip the scaffolding off her soul. Winter floods her veins, and she becomes fey in truth. Now impossible to control by magic, she slaughters Akua, and meets up with the Black Knight, who made his way to the control array of the device that allows Akua to control Liesse, and in particular open Hellgates . An image of the Dread Empress Malicia joins them as well, and she and Catherine attempt to persuade Black to use the fortress as a weapon of mutually assured destruction: averting any future wars with other countries since if any particular country were to declare war on them, a Hellgate could be opened in the capital of that country. Black knight is, however, unconvinced - he believes that such a weapon would be a perfect casus beli for all other countries to declare a Crusade against Praes, and bring in the most experienced heroes with them - and uses his aspect Destroy to break the weapon, releasing the gestalt of souls that kept it powered. As the weapon breaks, Catherine sees The Wandering Bard standing near, smiling at a plot that went exactly according to plan.

**Dramatis Personae**

I thought about writing this, I really did. But kind people [at TVTropes ](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/APracticalGuideToEvil)have already done the work for me, and really, I could not possibly compare. :p If you don't know (or forget) who one of the characters is, head down there and they would explain it all.


	2. Speculation

It has been just a few hours since I woke up from the torpor that the explosion of Liesse forced me into, and Masego already had his hands buried up to the elbow in my chest. Always a gentleman, he waited until I asked him to do so, though I had a feeling that if I postponed the procedure I’d have woken up in the middle of the night one day with my organs spread out on the table for easier inspection. But having woken up with long gouges in my arms scored by my own nails, leaking pure liquid instead of blood, I rather insisted on the investigation to be done immediately. I had to know exactly what happened to this body when I ripped off the soul scaffolding in the fight with the Diabolist. Adjutant barely managed to drag me away to present a summary report on all the things currently on fire while Masego prepared the tent, and since then we have been holed up in here without leaving.

Masego was absolutely extatic about exploring every corner of my body, of course. Over the course of the last three days we found out that what ran through my veins was no longer blood, but something closer to pure Winter. My bones were no longer made from human bone, but have shattered and were remade anew in ivory. My skin could feel warmth and frost like colors, and my heart, while still beating, was in no way involved in pushing my blood around.

As it happened, the gouges in my arms were a sheer accident. I was no longer capable of staying in a fully warded tent for more than a few moments before I got this  _ itch _ . It always began on my palms, small pricks that I would have thought were drying sweat if I still sweated. Then it was the bottom of my feet, and from there it was only a matter of time before I felt like scratching my own skin off. Which is what I did in my sleep after Archer, having dragged my unconscious ass out of Liesse, dropped me off in one such tent to rest. I got all the way to the bone in my sleep, or what passed for it. Masego ended up paralysing me below the neck for the duration of the procedure to prevent a repeat incident.

Two facts stood out among all the other technical information related to my condition. First, he told me my body should no longer actually be considered a body. It was, objectively speaking, a ‘construct’.  _ There is nothing natural about a construct _ , was the part that struck me hardest.  _ It is made, not born, and so does not function as truly living thing would. _ He’d refused to outright state it, since he was still lacking proof, but I’d gotten out of him that the ‘flesh ‘and ‘blood’ I now wore had precious little to do with what had been those same things before Liesse. I had been born anew, in a way. Not a pleasant one. Beyond what he told me, I glimpsed something that managed to bring the taste of curiosity to my mouth even if only faintly. Fae were known for illusions most of all. Was I just wearing a trick of light, a deception of Creation? Could I be dismissed, the way fairies and devils could be? If my form was but an illusion, could I change it to suit whatever was most expedient at the time? If so, possibilities were almost endless.

  
The second fact had been shrouded in inscrutable magetalk babble when he started expounding about it, as he told me about something called ‘Principle Alienation’. One of the limits of sorcery, apparently, and also the reason diabolism was such a popular branch of it. I got him to talk in actual Lower Miezan after a while, and he managed to convey the basics of it to me. Essentially, any mortal individual trying to use power was shackled by the limited mortal understanding of Creation and its many layers. A mage could not use the powers of a demon, at least in part, because they could not perceive the fabric of the world the way a demon did. Hence why Praesi were so fond of binding otherworldy creatures into their service, gaining access to powers they themselves would not be able to use. I was no summoner, and told him as much, but his reply ran along different lines than expected. I was wielding powers a mortal could not, so it followed that whenever I used them I became  _ less _ mortal.

That was the most worrying part of all. The moment I began calling on Winter my mind would move along similar lines as a fae’s. I already noticed this - my feelings on the matter were not as strong as they used to be when I was human. I would have been terrified before, but now I was just...numb. If any use of my powers would increase that effect, make me less and less sane, less and less capable of thinking clearly… I could be fluid and powerless, or unbending and powerful, but with Bard on the field unbending may just as well be dead. 

I’d always treated my body as a tool, a vessel to get me where I needed to be. Now this tool had a lit sharper tied to it, tailored to kill me at the moment when I needed it most. So it was time to find a way to cut it off. 

In the lecture Masego gave he mentioned that Principle Alienation, as accepted by the summoner when calling a devil, was temporary and decayed over time. If my form of it functioned likewise, I could at least use my powers in a limited capacity without permanently destroying my mind. Which is why he was looking through my soul right now, trying to tell how that part of the process worked, while I tried to stay as still and silent as possible so as to not interfere with the process.

That left me with all too much time to think, and to deal with another pressing issue that could kill me. I closed my eyes, and thought back to what happened in Liesse. 

I remembered ripping the scaffolding on my soul off and feeling my soul being ripped to shreds as Winter consumed me. I remembered having a chat with Black and Empress on the subject of story mistakes. I remembered Black putting an end to it all with one gesture. And that was where trouble started.

I remember feeling furious at Black in the moment, for putting my country under the knife again. But I no longer felt it. Couldn't even understand  _ why _ I felt it before all that well - his logic was sound, and I had no disagreements.

When we were swept by the tide of unleashed souls, something hit me, and I was changed. At first I thought it was another soul lashing onto me, but Masego claimed there was only my soul here, however mutilated by Winter. He found no sign of another spirit, or of their previous presence. Some accident of magic happened, and left no major trace.

It was nothing immediately obvious. I was not a raving lunatic, and I didn't want to become buddies for all eternity with Akua - ha, like there would be a difference. But my thoughts flowed along different lines now than they used to. I felt… calmer, somehow. My memories of what I have done before, Hells, of my entire life felt a little foreign, like played by an actor who didn't  _ quite _ understand the personality they were playing.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

Whatever happened, Masego saw no way to revert the effect, and so it joined the long line of things trying to screw with my head. First there was my Name, which in retrospect affected me more than I realised, subtly nudging me this way and that. Then there was this unknown effect and whatever it did. And finally, there was Winter and Principle Alienation.

And here I thought having Black Speak at me was bad.

Seeing no way to deal with the other two, I considered my mantle of Winter. If it could affect my thinking, how would I be able to tell? In fact, if it  _ had _ already affected my thinking, how would I be able to discover that fact?

How do you detect a change in something as a result of some event? Well, you compare it before the event and after, and see wherever anything about it is different. This meant that for me to detect a change in my thinking I would have to find some property of it that I could analyse in detail at speed, and compare the results of the analysis with the one performed in calm conditions. Which specific property would, of course, depend on which ones would change, how much, and how dangerous the change would be. 

Masego said that alienation was, primarily, an issue of perception. What would that mean? Would my vision change until I saw the world as winter fey did? What would it even  _ mean _ to see the world differently from how it was? Some people had sharper vision, some did not, and I knew some races could see in the dark better than humans, but it was hard to imagine how a fey might look at a red cup and see blue instead. Even if it did, it seemed easy enough to test such changes. I could try reading letters from a distance and see if I need to come closer or step father until I can read them, or compare colours and see if I get them right. 

But no, with my luck, that would not be the actual issue. Masego also said that my mind would move along the lines of fey, and that was much more troubling. I’ve remembered talking to fey, back in Skade. They seemed human, and yet...incomplete. More story character than a person, flat, unable to react to any new circumstance. Uncreative, for lack of a better term. Only seeing the first, obvious solution to every problem at hand, and jumping on it without considering the intricacies or long term consequences of it. If I would turn into  _ that _ in the middle of combat, that would spell the death of me at the hands of any halfway competent hero. But if I expected it, I could hopefully find a way around it beforehand.

Suppose I, too, would turn flat and unchanging. How could you detect and measure that, to know which uses of my power were safer and which ones more dangerous? 

Well, an obvious thought would be to look at how a fey mind in my body would behave. Thinking generally… If fey only saw simple solutions to problems, then I could pose some sort of problem in front of myself, solve it, and then compare the solution I came up with to the one I came up with without winter influence. Only it couldn't be just a single puzzle, since then I would just remember the original solution I came up with. That would mean I would need to be able to compare the degree of nuance I displayed on solving different problems from some sort of special puzzle set…

Okay, that started to seem quite complicated. Even if I figured out all the details, it would take a while to set up, while I needed a way to use Winter  _ now _ . I needed another workable idea.

Hm. What about my personality? If fey were more like story book characters, it stood to reason that my personality would become more exaggerated the more I became like one of them. Perhaps I myself would not notice the changes, but Archer or Hakram would…

But that was also a dead end, wasn't it. Everyone knew me only as Named, and personality of Named was already quite exaggerated. How much space was really left for it to grow even more pronounced? Furthermore, my personality already changed significantly. It did not escape me that previous Catherine would have much preferred drinking herself to sleep over this much introspection. Anyone observing me would have trouble teasing out which part of the change was due to Winter alienation and which due to this other change, and so could hardly help me in the short term until they re-learned my new personality.

Frustrating. So many options I could use if only I had a week to work with, but none that would work immediately. What else was there? Surely fey must have some easily detectable difference from mortal humans. They were unmistakably different, whenever you talked to one, so why was this so difficult?

Okay, let’s try another approach. What does a mortal have, which a fey does not? 

Goals and ambitions, those are seen in both, if quite significantly different. Personal qualities and quirks of speech, again, both have them. Family...I got my mantle by pretending to be the daughter of a fey noble, so that was a bust too. Friends… Hm. I couldn’t remember even a single example of fey treating one another warmly, unless you count the ones where they tried to set one another on fire. 

Interpersonal relationships. That was something. Winter fey did not seem to have friends as much as temporary allies, so if my thinking would become similar to theirs, perhaps my opinion of others would change to reflect that. I could then honestly describe my opinion of them, compare it to how I described it before - could write it down, perhaps - and as long as I wasn’t far enough gone to start wanting to trick  _ myself _ into believing I wasn’t under influence, I should be able to notice the changes.

Perhaps.  _ If _ my opinions of other people would be affected as I expected.  _ If _ I could keep enough willpower to remember to check myself regularly.  _ If _ I could be honest with myself about how I felt about other people.  _ If _ I could find some memory of them descriptive enough to write down in advance to use as comparison. So many Ifs, but at least the last one I could work on immediately. 

I laid there for a long while, sorting through my memories. 

* * *

I opened my eyes just as Masego pulled his tools out of my chest, and removed a complicated arrangement of metal that held my ribs apart. Seeing the cut flesh knit itself back together with no input on my part would have been creepy, but in the light of other revelations it did not even register on the scale.

“So, doctor, tell me how it is. Will I be able to walk again?”

“I am not a doctor, Catherine, as you are well aware. And you were able to walk perfectly well before.” He squinted at me in suspicion. “This is another one of those things where you say lies as a joke isn't it?”

I shook my head, sitting up on the table. “I have no idea what you mean. So, what did you find? Will I switch to only speaking in monologues the minute I use my powers?”

Masego stared at me in suspicion, before sighing and continuing. “I assume there is no point in explaining this in standard thaumaturgical terms. There have been no noticeable changes in your soul over the course of this hour. This means that whatever alienation you acquire from the passive usage of your powers from simply existing as you are, you are either capable of absorbing it faster than it accumulates, or it accumulates slowly enough to be below the measurement threshold of my methods. If it is the former, then usage of your powers should have minimal lasting effect. If it is the latter, you should have some time before you become too similar to a fey to be incapable of rational thought.“ 

I nodded, and scrubbed my chin in thought. Well, at least that meant I wouldn’t fully turn into fey just from walking around. Might even be able to do some fighting in a pinch without starting a monologue on the meaninglessness of friendships. And since no immediate threats were going to come from my body, it was about time to get back to my earthly duties.

I swung my legs off the table, and stood up. Even though my ribcage was spread on the table but a moment ago, I did not feel any lingering weakness anywhere in my body. My body healed itself completely in just moments. A shiver went through me at that realisation. Lone Swordsman showed just how troublesome such a trick could be, and his version was limited in the number of uses. This...just felt like what my body  _ did _ now, and would do for as long as I was alive. The sheer level of passive power on display was disturbing.

I walked towards the entrance to the tent and called for a soldier on guard, sending him to fetch Duchess Kegan of House Ismail. That issue would have to be dealt with first. 

“Let’s talk about Ranker”, I said, turning back towards Masego. Kegan would take a while to arrive, and that should give us plenty of time to discuss things not for her ears.

“Ah,” Masego said, glass eyes shifting under his cloth to look at me. “Is it finally time for sanctions? I would have thought she would be in the tent for this.”

“Hakram told me he looked into your complaint,” I said.   
  
His brow rose.   
  
“Three mage lines attempted to stick me inside a ward in broad daylight before the better part of a hundred thousand soldiers,” he said. “How much investigation can possibly have been needed?”   
  
If the situation in the camps wasn’t such a mess, the fact that he’d actually lodged a formal complaint with the Legions would have carried a lot of weight. Especially given who his father was. But the lines of command were shaky at the moment. Ranker was both the senior commander here and the subject of the complaint, and while I outranked her as both Named and Vicequeen of Callow that authority was half a fiction. Her legion would stick with her whatever happened, and likely General Sacker’s as well. I couldn’t just bury this, of course. I owed Masego better than that, and besides, making it seem like turning on my allies in the middle of battle was unpunished would lead to more problems down the road. The problem was that she’d had reasons for that, and not bad ones.   
  
“As I understand it, the ward wasn’t actually meant to harm you,” I said.   
  
He scoffed.   
  
“It would have left me bereft of sorcery in the midst of men attempting to kill me, had it succeeded,” he said. “Murder with a borrowed knife.”   
  
I nodded. I didn’t disagree, but the old Matron had been careful to cover her back before acting. She had, before witnesses, scried Duchess Kegan to order that Hierophant not be harmed. Which practically speaking would have done nothing – entire parts of Kegan’s host had just seen dozens of their own incinerated without warning, they would have attacked whatever she said – but it did give Ranker plausible deniability. Combined with officially stated worries about Hierophant being corrupted by demons, she’d not technically done anything I could punish her for. And pushing the matter regardless when the situation was so volatile was a recipe for a fight breaking out.   
  
“I can’t actually punish a marshal, Masego,” I admitted. “Not right now. With the Empress being silent and Black unconscious in theory I’m the supreme authority here, but I don’t have the support in the Legions to force the matter.”

Not to mention that I had no earthly idea how to punish her without severely affecting military efficiency of the empire. Ranker followed Black from the start, and my understanding of her was that she was a true believer in him and his policies. While that made her reliable in the military matters, it unfortunately made her effectively unpunishable. She didn't need or want lands, money or titles, which would be the normal ways to affect a person of such high rank. Only title of hers worth anything was her position as the Marshal of the empire and her command of one of the legions… Which she deserved through merit, and as such there was nobody else competent enough to replace her. I could demote her, but we both would realise it would be pure fiction as she'd be right back in command as soon as crusader armies arrived. Similarly, going after her legion would only harm the legion and make Ranker think I was stupid and short sighted. Hopefully Black would have a better idea.

  
“An attempt was made on my life, Catherine,” Hierophant said, cocking his head to the side. “Support is irrelevant. Give me two lines of mages and I will turn her camp into a crater with a bare half day of preparation.”

  
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid,” I said. “You’re right to be angry. Furious, even. But you can’t wipe out a few thousand people for one woman’s decision.”

  
“I can,” Masego disagreed, “if they shield her from retribution.”   
  
“I’m not asking you to just let this go,” I said. “I am asking you to wait until Black either wakes up, or it would be clear he wouldn't. With his support it would be much easier to deal with her.”

He scoffed. 

“Putting off the issue won't make me forget it.” He said. “I  _ will _ have my due. If you want to wait until uncle Amadeus wakes up to deal with Ranker,  _ fine _ , but you could at  _ least  _ punish the mages involved right now.”

I nodded, hesitantly. “That is possible. Hakram has been in talks concerning what could be done, and mage lines involved could be punished.”   
  
It was a good thing Adjutant needed so little sleep, because since the battle he had been running himself ragged. This was arguably the most delicate negotiation he’d done yet, given what could come of a failure. I felt Hierophant’s stare on me though neither his eyes nor his body moved, the subtle weight of his attention.   
  
“Executed?” he asked, and his voice was hard to read.   
  
“Demoted back to the ranks,” I said. “All pending transfer to another legion, pay docked for a year’s worth.”   
  
“A slap on the wrist,” he said. “This is not even symbolic. No, rather it is symbolic of them  _ getting away with it _ .”   
  
I’d thought he would say that. Marshal Ranker was not the kind of goblin easily talked into bending the neck, much less when she believed herself to be in the right. Gods know I even considered other options. The days where I had considered the Legions my teacher’s domain and therefore sacrosanct were over, so I could have just ordered the ones responsible assassinated - Ratface's contacts within the Guild of Assassin's would see to that. Demand them to be transferred to legions within the Wasteland, and then catch them along the way, perhaps. But no, I could not order two dozen qualified men killed simply because it would appease my friend.   
  
I nodded instead. “And it would not punish Ranker, who gave the orders. That is why I want you to wait until Black wakes up before doing anything rash. Surely you could wait a few days more?”

He nodded, reluctantly. “Fine. Three days, I can wait. If uncle Amadeus won't wake up by then, he would probably be out for a full month, and I am not waiting that long.”

  
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said.   
  
He nodded.   
  
“Good,” I grimly said. “Because you’re going to enjoy our talk with Kegan even less, but I'll need your help with it.”

* * *

As soon as I heard Duchess arrive, I raised my own voice and ordered the legionaries outside to let her in. The Duchess of Daoine parted the flaps of the tent with her hand and sketched half a bow in my direction. The stare she gave Hierophant was distinctly less than friendly.

“Your Grace,” she greeted me. “I am pleased your  _ strenuous duties _ have finally allowed time for audience.”   
  
Yeah, I’d kind of deserved that. Even at the kingdom’s peak there been nobody but the royal family higher in rank than the head of the House of Ismail – she likely wasn’t used to being given a brush-off, much less one as blatant as one my legionnaires have repeatedly given her over the last few days.   
  
“Take a seat, Duchess,” I said. “I’m told you have grievances to bring forward.”   
  
“An understatement if there ever was one,” Kegan sneered, and pointedly sat herself across the table from the both of us. “My men were murdered, and the very murderer sits at your side. Not an auspicious beginning.”   
  
Hierophant opened his mouth, but I raised my hand.   
  
“Let her lay it out first,” I said. “You can give answer afterwards. Duchess, the floor is yours.”   
  
“Seventy-three dead, without even ashes to bury,” Kegan said. “Thirty-nine wounded permanently. Do I need to call witnesses forward? This entire host saw the killings.”   
  
“Your men attempted to kill Hierophant as well,” I said, and her face turned dark with fury.   
  
“Is the defences of one’s life now a crime in the eyes of the Empire?” she barked.   
  
“The Empress isn’t here,” I said calmly. “I am. And I am not condemning their actions, only establishing the full facts. Do you have anything to add?”   
  
“Murder of Deoraithe is a breach of our treaty with the Tower,” Kegan coldly said. “And I believe that under the regulations of your own legions, the wanton killing of allied soldiers qualifies as treason.”   
  
“So it does,” I agreed, and was more than a little glad I sat down with Aisha before this. “’Wanton killing’ being defined as ‘killing without just pretext’ under the same regulations.”   
  
“Are you implying there was anything just about this?” the Deoraithe said, and her tone could have frozen oil.   
  
“I think this was a tragedy,” I said. “But also a largely accidental one. Masego, if you would explain yourself?”   
  
His glass eyes were fixing the duchess with a stare as unfriendly as her own.   
  
“I was not aware I needed to explain my actions to  _ aristocrats _ ,” Hierophant said, the disdain he put into the word ironically reminding me of the same highborn he was looking down on.   
  
“I’m asking you to clarify why you did what you did,” I said. “Lest your actions be interpreted inaccurately.”   
  
That, more than anything else, jolted him into talking. Throwing around rank here would have been completely useless.   
  
“Upon returning from the dimensional fold in which I battled the three demons,” Masego said, “My sudden juxtaposition to Creation brought back with it a large quantity of demonic essence. That essence having corrupted soldiers, I purged the location before it could further contaminate. Any further killing was made in my own defence.”   
  
“The killing of corrupted individuals regardless of Praesi citizenship is legal under purge protocols,” I clarified for Kegan. “Which the Black Knight declared the moment the rebels called forward their demons. Hierophant hasn’t broken Tower law by doing this, and killing men that were attacking him is similarly legal.”   
  
“I could have killed twice as many,” Hierophant flatly said. “You should be thanking me for my restraint.”   
  
I almost winced. I really, really wished he hadn’t said that. Reading a room had never been one of Masego’s talent, but even by his standards this was a blunder. Predictably, Kegan’s face a was a mask of bitter and poisonous fury.   
  
“You feed my people to demons, murder them and then those trying to protect them,” she hissed. “And you require thanks for it?”   
  
“The Lord Hierophant misspoke in an attempt to hide his deep regret at the tragic necessity of his actions,” I lied. “Please forgive his lack of manners.”   
  
“I am the Duchess of Daoine,” Kegan of House Ismail softly replied. “I do not forget. I do not forgive.”   
  
It was rather sad this wasn’t even the worst I’d anticipated this conversation could go. Masego looked about to speak again but the look I sent him smothered that in the crib.   
  
“Deep regret,” I stressed.   
  
“I did not mean to harm them,” Hierophant sighed, sounding his age for once.   
  
It was rare for him to have to face consequences for the collateral damage that followed in our wake. Most the time, it was our foes that got the worst of it. That sentence was probably as good as I could hope for, though Kegan understandably seemed less than appeased.   
  
“Before you speak again,” I interrupted. “He could not know your men would be where he reappeared.”   
  
I didn’t know if that was true and frankly didn’t care what the truth was. She would be in no position to gainsay me anyway: the mages that could understand what Hierophant had pulled on the field in the whole of Calernia could probably be counted on one hand.   
  
“And he was not the one who ordered your soldiers forward,” I continued. “That would be Marshal Ranker.”   
  
It was unfair of me to throw her under the chariot here, to be honest. It was Masego who hadn’t kept anyone in the loop when he’d done… whatever it was he’d actually done. I knew how he got when he had a puzzle in front of him, everything else fell by the wayside. It was something I would have to change in him, the going off without a word. Trying to fix the moral compass of a man raised by a monster and also an incubus was far beyond my ability, but I could at least fashion a facsimile of one through practicality. As long as he understood discussions like this would keep happening if he didn’t change his ways, he should be willing to adjust in order to avoid the tediousness. That aside, Ranker had given orders according to what she believed to be the lay of the battlefield and her mistake had ultimately been understandable. By my reading of the reports she’d believed the entire army would collapse if the centre wasn’t reinforced, so she’d merely taken what she saw as the lesser risk. But Kegan hated Ranker deeply, had for decades. She could hardly start hating her more. If blaming her was what kept the peace, I’d be fine with it.   
  
“Regardless of orders, there is fault,” the Deoraithe said, but there’d been a noticeable thaw in the poison. “My men were killed at the Lord Hierophant’s hand.”   
  
Ah, Black. As always, your lessons are useful. People always preferred blaming an old enemy if you gave them the chance.   
  
“And for that there will be redress,” I said. “Though there was no ill-intent, the deaths cannot be ignored. To start, Hierophant will help your mages reform the gestalt in Liesse.”   
  
Masego turned to me, displeasure visible on his face, but that was the least of the concessions I could and would make. Kegan set aside her anger for a moment, more interested in the prize I’d put on the table: confirmation that no one would contest the souls of her people. Keeping her wizards at bay had, in an unexpected way, made what must have once seem as a given feel like it was now a concession. I’d count my blessings in that.   
  
“Full access to the city will be granted?” she pressed.   
  
“Under supervision,” I said, and before she could argue I raised a hand. “Not out of distrust, Duchess. That city is a nightmare made stone and my people are the ones who’ve been keeping an eye on it. I do this to avoid you losing a few of your practitioners in the bargain.”   
  
“It would not be necessary if access had been granted since the beginning,” Kegan said, but did not disagree any further.   
  
“Hierophant,” I continued, “will also put his considerable prowess in sorcery at your disposal in order to help your practitioners ensure the gestalt cannot be stolen like this again. After which he will never speak a word of those measures to anyone, by royal decree.”   
  
“Catherine-“ he began.   
  
“We fuck up, we pay up,” I bluntly told him. “This isn’t Praes, Masego. We don’t get a pass because we’re Named or powerful. If the laws protect you, they protect them too.”   
  
He turned sullen at that, and that was the very reason I’d not warned him of this in advance. Look at me, Kegan, I thought. I’m going against one of my closest and most powerful supporters to set things right with you. Keep that in mind before deciding I’m an enemy. I knew the blind man’s irritation would pass after he dug into the thick of the sorcery that was involved in what had been promised. There was a reason I’d chosen that out of all the possible avenues of making reparations. The Duchess would see one of the foremost Named in the Empire put to the service of her people, while Hierophant would forget this was a punishment at all after the first month. And if this required going to Daoine for a while, it just so happened that would keep Masego out of the reach of the Empress and the Calamities for while. That also had its uses. But I’d have to give more, for what I wanted out of Daoine. Masego had no part of that, though, and it would be better if he wasn’t there at all.   
  
“Hierophant’s actions took place while he was under my command,” I told Kegan. “Therefore the responsibility is mine in part. In my function as Vicequeen of Callow I’ll offer further reparations, but I believe my comrade’s part in this is largely done.”   
  
Masego mostly looked pleased he wouldn’t have to keep being involved in this, but it wasn’t him I was watching out for. It was the Duchess. In her eyes I could see the struggle: make a play for further punishment and risk whatever other indemnities I would offer, or show goodwill she didn’t think he deserved and bank on that adding to the honeypot? Greed won, as I thought it would. The Duchess was about to have some lean years, if my suspicions about the costs of replacing the Watch’s casualties were true. She’d want to hit me up for coin more than try and likely fail to have Hierophant further punished.   
  
“That part of the grievance is considered settled,” she conceded.

Good.   
  
“A moment,” I said, and my heartbeat stilled.   
  
When planning this talk, I considered wherever to do this. There was a chance that alienation would be permanent, at least in part, and that made every use of winter power quite dangerous. On the other hand, there was also danger of what was going to be said here getting to the wrong ears. In the end, I decided to risk it.

The air in the tent cooled. Once that would have seen every surface in sight frost over, but I’d gained more than just power when I’d claimed my full mantle. Winter hung thickly in the air, a barely visible pale mist. No one would be able to scry through that, and my perceptions were extended far enough no one would be able to come and listen in without my knowing it. I felt the legionaries outside shuffle at the sudden drop, the two as visible to me as if I was standing before them, and I raised my voice to send the pair away. When I turned my eyes back to Kegan she had gone pale. Fear, I noted. It wafted off her like a scent. I breathed it in and smiled. It would be easy to get what I wanted from her. All that was needed was to weave myself into mind like a quiet whisper, slithering into her brains until terror ruled her and my words were her only relief. She would beg me to serve. If I twisted her just right, set a sliver of darkness and ice deep inside, I could have her plagued with nightmares that would keep her on my leash forever. 

Then Masego slapped me across the face hard enough my head jerked to the side. Duchess yelped in surprise.

I stared at him blankly. Why was my ally attacking me? Wasn't he supposed to think I was his friend? 

“Check for alienation” said Masego, staring into my eyes.

“Check for Alienation”. Oh. Right. I was supposed to do that. We had planned this before Duchess came in.

I took the notebook with the notes on my major relationships out of my jacket, and skimmed the first few pages. Who the Hells wrote this naive drivel?

At the bottom of each page, it said “If this is naive drivel, you are under influence.”

I steadied my breath, and my fingers clenched. I am under influence of alienation, I chanted in my own mind. Every thought I have is suspect. Every action I may want to take is suspect. I am under influence...

I turned to the page which had my step by step plan for analysing my actions while under influence. Step one was to clearly state what action I wanted to perform. Easy. I wanted to bend Duchess to my will with the powers of Winter. Step  _ two _ was to remember what I wanted to do before I used winter. I wanted… I wanted to  _ talk _ to her and to block scrying. Therefore desire to bend her to my will was  _ new _ and therefore suspect. 

But before I used winter I didn't know I  _ could _ bend her to my will as easily as moving a finger, so I could hardly have decided wherever I wanted to do so or not. Besides, I wanted to talk to her, to convince her I was right, and wasn't that ultimately the same thing when you threw away the naive conceptions? 

Step  _ three  _ was to analyse the future impact of this action on Callow. Callow would get a reliable ally, and that was surely purely positive.

Fourth step was to analyse the decision for possible story weaknesses, but the page with a classification of such weaknesses was blank - I didn't have the time to write anything there yet. I tried to remember a couple, but reaching for my old memories was like swimming in honey. There was something about monologues, but I wasn't going to talk while I did it… I wasn't about to build a flying magic fortress...

Fifth step was, in giant letters, DO NOT USE WINTER POWERS UNTIL MASEGO TELLS YOU IT'S OKAY TO DO SO.

…

I mean, he didn't tell me it  _ wasn't _ okay?..

…

Was I rationalising this? It didn't  _ feel _ like rationalising, surely I was just thinking of the best possible action in the moment.

…

Besides, what did old me know anyways?

…

I breathed in deep. No mind control, Catherine. You won't use mind control on the Duchess. The urge lessened. It still lurked, but the power was no longer waiting to lash out. I even felt some horror at how close I came to falling into a classic “Monster tortures and controls the populace” story, which I took as a sign I was managing to deal with this alienation business. Neither me nor Masego expected it to hit this hard this quickly, or we would never have went through with this.

I thanked Masego, and told him he could leave. He was supposed to knock me out if I started monologuing or turned on him, but thankfully that did not prove necessary. He didn’t bother with courtesies when he left the tent as quickly as he could.

I turned to face the Duchess. The two of us had cats to skin of greater import.

“Excuse me.” I said. “A little measure to prevent scrying, nothing more.”

“And the slap...” the Duchess said, uncertainly, staring after leaving Masego.

“Stabilises the shielding spell.” I lied without blinking. “You’d have to ask lord Hierophant for details on why that is required.”

She clearly didn’t believe me, but nodded anyways, and turned to look at me. I saw her eyes widen as she looked into mine. 

  
“Gods,” the Duchess said. “Your eyes, they… It is true, then. You are no longer human.”   
  
My eyes? I raised an eyebrow and a light tap of the finger on the table had it frost. I looked upon my reflection and found nothing amiss, fixing the Deoraithe with a quizzical look.   
  
“Like frozen ponds,” she whispered.

  
Useful, I thought, if they were truly this disquieting. The part of me that would have been finching before was utterly silent.

  
“We will not be overheard,” I said. “Would you be entirely opposed to some honesty between us, Duchess? It should limit the tediousness.”   
  
She shivered at my voice, or perhaps the cold.   
  
“I am not disagreeable,” she managed with laudable composure.   
  
“There is a war coming,” I said. “I would like the know where Daoine will stand, and before it reaches our doorstep.”   
  
“The terms of our treaty with the Tower require a host of no less than ten thousand soldiers be provided in case of foreign invasion,” she said cautiously.   
  
“If I was here on behalf of the Empress, this tent would be warmer,” I said.   
  
She stared at me for a long time.   
  
“You speak of rebellion,” she said.   
  
“Nothing quite so… turbulent,” I replied.   
  
“Then what, exactly?” she pressed.   
  
I smiled, broad and sharp.   
  
“Do you play shatranj, Duchess?” I asked, voice echoing strangely.   
  
This I time I knew why she shivered.   
  
“I do,” she said.   
  
“To have a game, you see, you need an unspoken assumption,” I murmured. “That there are only  _ two _ players on the board..”   
  
She stayed. She listened.   
  
And after, she made a deal.


	3. Contemplation

The moon had come and gone, chased away by the approach of dawn. I still had the better part of a bell left until the sun rose, but I sat patiently. It would make the sixth time Archer went into the city now, and she’d come close enough the last I could reasonably expect her to succeed on this trip. I’d come to regret not bringing a folding chair for my vigil, but the log I was leaning against was comfortable enough apathy had seen me decline going out to get one. I enjoyed the silence, to be honest. The reprieve from everything. Out here I could think in peace, and there was much to think about. Even though two days have passed since Akua’s fortress was destroyed, I was not so naive as to think I could rest. A myriad of other enemies remained, and now, with the kingdom and the legions weakened from the battle, would be a perfect time for them to strike. 

Unfortunately, a fair number of those enemies was not known to me, and for the ones that  _ were _ known I could only begin to guess at their capabilities. For example, I suspected The Wandering Bard would cheerfully push me down the stairs onto a pile of rusty knives. Assuming she was Named and not some other freaky avatar of the Gods themselves, she should have three Aspects as well as various other minor tricks. From what Black and I learned of her, I could guess that at least one was related to how she managed to teleport across ridiculous distances. That left two more, both of which had to fit the theme of her Name. Wandering Bard was not suited for combat, so I could  _ assume _ the Aspects would not be anything flashy like explosions of light, summonings of armies, boosts of speed and endurance, or honestly anything that would be easy to counter. That left the worst kinds of aspects, the kind that could screw me over even if Bard never physically came close to me - information gathering, future prediction, mind magic and so on. And she would have  _ two _ of them, or even  _ three _ if I pessimistically assumed teleportation was not an actual aspect. Furthermore, Bard was only one such threat, and I could guess at at least half a dozen other, similar ones. That meant that I effectively had to find a way to defend against an arbitrary attack that could come at any time from any direction, and if I failed, I would most likely die.

Joy.

At least I no longer required sleeping, as I’ve found out. Much like eating or breathing it was no longer something I needed to do, though I still could do so voluntarily - my body was sustained entirely by Winter. But I needed all the time I could get, for planning and training, so I doubted I would resort to that much until Callow was safe. But I  _ could _ tire of thinking over two dozen things threatening to kill me and ways to counter them, and so I was passing the time by experimenting with my power.

My body was, fundamentally, a Winter construct. And since I was the current Queen of Winter, it stood to reason that I should be capable of affecting the shape and function of this construct. I have already tried simple things - I could change the rate at which my heart beat and even stop it entirely, which had no apparent effect on any bodily function I had. Changing the color and texture of my skin and hair proved easiest of all, though I could not yet see any tactical use for that particular ability. Changing the length and shape of various parts of my body took a little practice, but I mastered the trick of it easily enough. Uses for that were much more obvious - longer arms meant better reach, and longer legs would allow me to run faster. 

I expected learning something of this magnitude to have taken days, but it took barely a quarter of a bell. Winter itself seemed to help me learn, just as it suggested how I could bend Duchess Kegan to my will. I no longer remembered how to do that - it seemed that understanding left my mind along with the alienation I took at the time - but the mere possibility suggested the sheer diversity of tricks my mantle should be capable of. Indeed, as far as diversity of options, I was beginning to suspect there might not be  _ any _ limits to what I could change about my body. I was trying to grow a functional sixth finger now. I thought about going for a third arm instead, but was worried about something that large accidentally making me take more alienation than I could handle.

As the trick was mental in nature, my gaze could wander around the surrounding landscape. It lingered on the ward setting the boundary around Liesse. It was a cork forced into a leaking barrel, not a long-term solution. I hesitated to call this luck, because Black was nothing if not calculated even at his worst, but the damage had been limited. Destroying the array had freed the souls of the Deoraithe but there’d been an interval between that unleashing and the city smashing back into Creation. The wards Masego had promised held, keeping the dead shades from turning a third of central Callow into a haunted wasteland, but Liesse itself was beyond salvaging. The wights inside had gone wild, tearing apart everything that wasn’t nailed down and quite a bit that was. Thrice a ruin now, the old heart of the south. There was nothing inside left alive, not even the rebel forces who’d been dug in. That close to the flood of souls their protection had been about as useful a parchment shield. As far as my people could tell, the few that’d survived the initial onslaught had been killed by the rampaging wights. 

I could see a couple of them right beyond the edge of the ward, shades of the dead standing a vigil of their own. I could feel their eyes on me, fixed and unblinking. They have stood there for the last couple bells, unmoving. There was hunger in them, but it was lesser than my own and that had them attracted to my presence like moths to a flame. Had I truly become the Black Queen, I thought, had my teacher not broken that transition as recklessly as he had the city, they would have been mine to rule. To shape and order as I wished, wresting true ownership of the weapon Akua had made from the Empire’s hands. The shape of that was still seductive. It would have been a gamble, however, and I could no longer afford those. Rolling the dice on just my own life I could accept, but not on the life of Callow itself. I needed certainty, and that only came with careful planning.   
  
Archer’s presence was heralded by the retreating of the shades. Even through the translucent wall of the ward I could see her tying a rope atop the rampart and shimmying down smoothly. Some curious shade wandered too close and was immediately carved through in a silver blur, the other woman’s longknife wounding it as if it was a thing of flesh. The others scattered immediately in a chorus of whispers I was careful not to listen too closely to. The sooner Hierophant bound those souls again the better for all involved. Archer tugged down the rope after landing and sheathed her blade, striding towards me unhurriedly. The ward pushed back her hair and clothes when she crossed it, but from the swagger to her step I knew she’d finally managed what I’d asked of her. A cold smile stretched my lips. Good. It was not the kind of thread I could allow to be left hanging. I pulled back on my mantle, removing the newly created sixth finger and waited for her to arrive.   
  
“So if Zeze told you shit was under control in there, he was gravely mistaken,” Archer told me with a shit-eating grin. “Get it? As in grave-“   
  
“You’ve just ensured we will never sleep together,” I told her frankly. “Your being an ass I can live with, but puns? I do have standards.”   
  
“Spoken like the Ice Queen of legend,” the Named replied cheerfully.   
  
She plopped herself down at my side, sprawling over twice the amount of space I’d occupied and elbowing me out of my comfortable stance. I threw back her hand in her own face and she yelped, more out of outrage than pain.   
  
“Is that any way to treat your beloved minion?” she complained.   
  
“Almost half of that was true,” I noted. “That’s a record for you.”   
  
“Ugh,” she grunted. “You’re such a joyless thing. I thought villains were supposed to be the fun ones.”   
  
“You’ve been part of two wars and several killings that will go into legend since linking up with me,” I pointed out.   
  
“Maybe, but I haven’t gotten laid in like a year,” she whined. “I’m this close to just dragging your pretty officer into a tent for the night.”   
  
I glanced at her. That could mean any number of people, given that her tastes did not discriminate between genders.   
  
“The one with the funny name,” she elaborated.   
  
I raised an eyebrow.   
  
“Ratface?” I tried.   
  
“That’s the one,” she cheered. “Aisha gets real chatty after a drinks, and she had nothing but compliments for-“   
  
“And this part of the conversation just came at an end,” I announced firmly.   
  
“You never gossip with me,” Archer told me, displeased.   
  
“I’ve delegated all gossiping duties to Hakram,” I said, swiftly throwing my closest friend under the chariot. “And if you’re being this much of a pest, you have something for me.”   
  
“Say please,” she grinned.   
  
“Please stop trying my patience,” I sweetly replied.   
  
I was rewarded by Archer rustling through her knapsack and dropping a cylinder of obsidian in my lap. I ran a finger down the length of it, and the soul bound within shivered. Oh, I thought. So you know who I am. That’s an unexpected pleasure.   
  


“So we are done with the city then?” Archer said, putting on an air of fake indifference “I won’t have to bring you any more dead guys?”

I smiled, despite myself. When Archer first went into the city, she returned almost immediately, saying that she wasn’t going to comb through the ruins of the palace by hand unless we at least knew the room where Akua’s true soul would be located. Of course, everyone who might know that information was either dead or undead and rampaging throughout the very same city, and so we appeared to be facing a rather unfortunate dilemma. First option was that Archer would have to spend days combing through the ruins by hand, and risk being killed or grievously injured by wights, souls, or any other magical bugger that might be running amok in the city. Second option was to wait until Masego cleared the city of souls and legionaires slowly cleared it of undead, and look for the container then… but I suspected that Akua’s soul container would be mysteriously “lost” by that time, only for her to appear in the flesh at the most unfortunate moment. Both options had disaster written all over them.

So I took the third option. During my search for Akua back during the battle, I have discovered that undead I raised with the help of Winter were intelligent, and retained their memories. So I sent Archer on her second trip to look for someone who looked important, or who might have known someone important, and to bring either their corpse or the wight made from it. 

She came back with two wights stuck in a large sack, all appendages in their bodies broken and dislocated, and with gags in their mouths to prevent them from eating their way out. I, with the help of Masego, tried pouring enough Winter into them until the animating spell was consumed entirely. Ordinarily this would be quite a complicated working, but Winter was basically  _ made _ of hunger. Consuming things was what it did, so even with my shoddy magic skills the scheme worked flawlessly. Wights fell, and they rose in my service.

Of course, we did not manage to get anyone who could point us in the direction of Akua’s inner sanctum on our first try. It wasn’t until the fourth foray into the city that we got enough information to be able to get in. Good thing, too, as Archer was growing increasingly irritated at having to carry twitching ravenous undead on her back. On the fifth one she returned with the artifact Akua used to scry across dimensions - a wonderfully crafted clay bowl - but the soul itself was more meticulously guarded. But now, we had everything of critical value from within the city. Other looting would have to wait until it was safe.

“No, no more dead guys.” I said, smiling. “That part is finished”

Seven informants I got out of the operation were placed under heavy guard and observation, as I wanted to see just how human - like they would become if given time to grow. In Liesse, with but one hour, they could understand complex orders and use magic. If this ability could be improved upon, I thought, it would be a great trick to throw at the incoming crusade. It awaited to be seen if this would turn out to be true.

  
“Kind of wanted to stab her a few times,” the Archer told me in a conversational tone, motioning towards the cyllinder. “You know, for Hunter.”   
  
“I tore out her heart while she was still alive to feel it,” I informed Archer.   
  
The other woman blinked at me, then let out a whistle.   
  
“Well shit,” she said. “That’s a way to get your displeasure across, I guess. Old school of you, Cat.”   
  
“She had a way of bringing that out in me,” I muttered, eyes on the soul container. “I lost my temper when she sent an envoy. Made an oath, even. Not the kind of thing I can back out of nowadays.”   
  
_ If you do this, there is no place in Creation or beyond that will safeguard you from me,  _ I’d sworn. _ Not Heavens or Hells, not even if every lord in Arcadia swears to you. The doom I promise you will have men trembling in a thousand years when they speak of Akua’s Folly and the woe that came from it.  _ I could feel what I had spoken binding me as surely as if I’d sworn on the Gods Below.   
  
“I thought about sending her to the Tower,” I admitted. “She’d have a place waiting for her in the Hall of Screams.”   
  
“But that wouldn’t be quite your vengeance then, would it?” Archer knowingly said.   
  


That, and I no longer trusted the Empress with possession of Akua’s soul. Not when I could no longer be certain another city wouldn’t go up in flames for a weapon to be forged. It was one thing to use that weapon after it was already made, another to enable Malicia to commit mass murder if she got desperate enough. Even if it was Praesi who got the axe this time, which I couldn’t be sure of. Malicia’s Name was affecting her too much for me to trust her with this, if she considered what was done at Liesse to be a safe way of avoiding the crusade.

There was a part of me that was urging me to just destroy the soul. To make sure the possible liability was ended for good. But as reasonable as I knew that action would be, I couldn’t quite bring myself to take it. I wasn’t sure whether it was genuine hatred that had me stay my hand, or if I simply couldn’t break the oath. Both were worrying liabilities.   
  
“I have a cloak,” I finally said.   
  
“The murder cloak, yeah,” Archer mused. “Called thus because you murdered someone for every piece you add to it.”   
  
I forced myself not to sigh. It would only encourage her.   
  
“Haven’t added her banner to it yet,” I said. “I was thinking maybe something more pointed was in order.”   
  
Archer eyed me sideways.   
  
“Shit,” she said. “Her own soul, really?”   
  
“It can be done,” I said. “I’ve heard the Warlock bound someone’s soul to a chamber pot once, Masego should be able to do something similar.”   
  
“I can’t decide whether that’s better or worse than skinning someone and making a cloak out of that,” she mused.   
  
“Past a certain point the nuances don’t matter much, I think,” I said.   
  
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Archer said, face turning up to stare at the sky. “They never do. We just tell ourselves otherwise so we can think someone else is worse.”   
  
“Never took you for the philosophical kind of girl,” I said, head leaning back next to hers.   
  
“That’s because it’s pointless to dig too deep,” she shrugged. “How long are we going to live, either of us? Not long enough to see more than the smallest bit of Creation. If that’s my limit, I want to sample as much of that bit as I can instead of just getting miserable about all this Good and Evil twaddle. Ain’t no settling that, no matter how hard you try. If you get involved you just get chewed up like all the others before you, and I don’t owe anybody that.”   
  
“Hate to break it to you,” I said, “but you are involved. What do you think we’ve been doing for the last year?”   
  
“I have no idea,” she admitted, sounding pleased at the notion. “But you’re a pretty shit villain and you gave the Choir of Contrition the finger, so I’m looking forward to finding out.”   
  
I wouldn’t get a better opening than that, I thought, so I might as well speak up now.   
  
“You got a letter,” I said. “From Refuge.”   
  
“Huh,” she grunted. “What’s in it?”   
  
“Are you implying I’d read your personal correspondence?” I said.   
  
“Haven’t you?” she snorted.   
  
“Of course not,” I said, and let a beat pass. “I have people for that.”   
  
“I can’t believe you’re half-assing even your spying on me,” she sighed. “Was it from the Lady?”   
  
I hummed in agreement.   
  
“She says the debt Refuge owed the Tower is settled,” I told her. “That your mandated service as my fae specialist is at an end. Didn’t actually summon you back, though.”   
  
“She wouldn’t,” Archer said. “It’s not how Refuge works. The Lady of the Lake’s not a queen, Cat, she’s just… the woman with the biggest stick, I guess. We learned from her, but we’re not like an army or anything. We do whatever we want.”   
  
I made a noise of understanding, not willing to comment on any of it given my lack of knowledge of Ranger.   
  
“So what are you going to do?” I asked.   
  
“Don’t be thick, you chump,” she sighed. “I’m staying. You should know that by now. But you should also know I’m going to leave eventually.”   
  
I had known that, deep down. Of all the Woe she was the one least bound to me. Adjutant and Hierophant had attachment to the Empire, and Thief to Callow. But Archer? Archer had come for reasons entirely her own, and would leave when she tired of them.   
  
“To where?” I asked.   
  
“I don’t know,” she laughed. “But there’s so much I haven’t seen. The Everdark, the Titanomachy. And you must have been told this entire continent is a nowhere. There’s nations on the other side of the Tyrian Sea that are larger than all of Calernia. Hells, we don’t even know what’s to the west.”   
  
“No one’s ever found anything in the Skiron ocean,” I reminded her. “Except sea snakes that were a tad unfriendly, and not the small kind.”   
  
“Doesn’t mean there’s not,” Archer murmured. “Wouldn’t that be something, Cat? Being the first Calernian to walk an unknown shore?”   
  
“It would be,” I admitted.   
  
I’d be something untainted, too, and there were few of those left in my life.   
  
“Maybe I’ll go with you, Archer,” I said. “If there’s ever going to be a day where I’m done. Where I can finally just leave.”   
  
My tone was tired, but it was not kind of tired sleep could cure. Archer stirred.   
  
“Indrani,” she said. “Call me Indrani.”   
  
We stayed there until dawn, laughing and talking of places so very far away. And just for a little while, I could feel my worries drain away.   


* * *

  
  
It was always odd to see Adjutant loaded with parchment instead of weapons, but not a bad sort of odd. It wasn’t unfitting, just different from what I was used to seeing. This time, though, the look I gave the scroll he handed me was harsh. It contained names, thirty-four of them. Mages taken prisoner after the Second Battle of Liesse.  
  
  
  
  
“And they’re currently in containment?” I asked.  
  
  
  
  
“Under ward and guard,” the orc said. “Both our own. The Fifteenth took custody of all prisoners.”  
  
  
  
  
“I’m not recognizing a lot of those names,” I told him. “I expected highborn.”  
  
  
  
  
“They’re all mfuasa,” Hakram informed me. “The Truebloods weren’t willing to gamble on Diabolist with kin, at least not important ones.”  
  
  
  
  
Servant lines, huh. Old retainer families of the High Lords who’d been in their service for so long they were above peasants in the Praesi pecking order. Akua had sent the same to me as expendable envoys when we’d had our little chat before the battle. I shoved the scroll under my arm and unfolded the other one he’d handed me.  
  
  
  
  
“Over two thousand,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I knew you’d grabbed a few, Hakram, but not that many.”  
  
  
  
  
“They’re not all Praesi,” he said. “There’s some Helikean mercenaries and even seven drows.”  
  
  
  
  
“Exiles?” I asked.  
  
  
  
  
“Soldiers don’t go to Mercantis when they’ve still got a home,” he said.  
  
  
  
  
I wiggled my elbow at the scroll he still held in hand.  
  
  
  
  
“And what’s on that?”  
  
  
  
  
“The names of the highborn within the household troops,” he said. “I’ve had Aisha look into them, to add notes regarding their background and what could reasonably be asked for ransom.”

  
“Ransom,” I repeated softly.   
  
“I know,” he said. “Not what you want. But it’s not a small sum, Catherine. And the moment you start raising armies and rebuilding the country, our coffers are going to bleed like a stuck pig.”   
  
“The Tower is meant to pay reparations,” I said.   
  
“The Tower’s gone silent,” Hakram growled. “That is not a good sign.”   
  
That was too true for me to deny. I’d expected Malicia to begin talks with me the moment the dust settled, and that she’d so far made no attempt was raising my hackles. Something was afoot. I needed the coin, that much was true. And yet, I couldn’t just let them go. I took the scroll with the highborn names, quickly scanned it, and rolled it back up. I needed the money, but I also needed to send the message. The only question was, which should I do first.   
  
“The closest road to Praes,” I said. “It’s between Summerholm and the Blessed Isle, correct?”   
  
“Closest paved road,” he corrected. “There’s dirt ones all over the region.”   
  
It was half a bell past dawn, and that meant matters were in need of settling. The prisoners first among them, since they were beginning to be a noticeable drain on our supplies. I looked east, where the road we’d spoken of would lay.   
  
“It is true, we need the coin.” I hummed, “Send the messages to the people Aisha thinks we can get ransom from, but quadruple the price. And make sure they understand they only get one offer.” 

“And if they refuse?” the orc asked.

“Then, we’ll begin on the outskirts of Summerholm,” I said. “One every mile.”   
  
“One what?” the orc asked.   
  
“Do you remember what Black did, after the Liesse Rebellion?” I said.   
  
Adjutant had never been slow to understanding.   
  
“The Countess Marchford and the Marchioness Vale,” he said.   
  
“Nailed to the gates of their own manors,” I mused. “I have a lack of those at hand, so the side of the road will have to do. One every mile, Hakram.  _ Crucified _ .”   
  
They wanted to make a fucking statement with their rebellion, did they? I could make one as well. You come here and you murder Callowans? This is what happens. This will always be what happens. Let them think of that every time they passed a corpse left to the crows.   
  
“You still have two lists in hand,” Adjutant finally said.   
  
“Mages get no such offer,” I said. “They are the ones who thought fucking demons were an appropriate method of warfare. I have my own ideas for what to do with them. As for the mercenaries, we can hardly release them back to Helike, as then Procer would simply hire them to throw at us again, and I doubt anyone would pay for their release. Add them to the trueblood ranks nonetheless. And keep the drow alive, for now. Then you can assemble what’s left.”   
  
“Should I have gallows raised?” he asked.   
  
I clenched my fingers, then unclenched them. Necessity and dues. Always the hardest balance to strike.   
  
“Do,” I finally said.   
  
The orc studied me closely.   
  
“Will they be used?” he said.   
  
“That’ll be on them,” I said. “They’re going to get the only thing any of us ever get. A choice.”   
  
I waited in my tent with a bottle of aragh and the latest reports while he saw to it. The Taghreb liquor was already tasteless, and it had a kick. It was one of the few drinks I could still enjoy, I found. By Noon Bell my sappers had raised the gallows and the remaining prisoners were herded out of their camp and onto the plains. Four companies of heavies stood around them, and as many regulars kept them moving in good order. They looked haggard, I saw when I left the tent. Not tortured or beaten, but kept on the least amount of rations possible and in chains even when they slept. A far cry from the resplendent soldiers they’d once been, decked in the Wasteland’s finest arms and armour. Adjutant was at my side when I stood before them, his looming presence a weight additional to my own. I gave him a nod and he barked orders, legionaries using the flat of their blades to silence the quiet talk of the prisoners.   
  
“You know who I am,” I said.   
  
One of the prisoners in the back called out something and there was a splash of laughter.   
  
“Adjutant,” I said.   
  
He went himself. Even those who’d laughed went utterly silent at the sight of the man being dragged to the gallows by his hair, kicking and screaming. The goblins slipped the noose around his neck and the lever was pulled. The sharp snap sounded like the crack of thunder across the eerily quiet assembly. Feet hanging above the deck, the corpse moved with the breeze.   
  
“You know who I am,” I repeated, and this time no one spoke. “I would be within my rights to hang every last one of you. It would, in all honesty,  _ make my day _ .”   
  
I sighed.   
  
“But I am not a wasteful woman,” I said. “You are dead, make no mistake about that. Tribunals have been convened and a verdict passed.”   
  
I’d stood before soldiers, once and spoken words like this to deserters. I’d come to care for them, in the end, but that had never been what was meant to happen was it? It had been a weakness on my part to get attached. One I was in no danger of repeating with this lot.   
  
“The manner and time of this end is at my discretion,” I said. “ _ I own your deaths _ . And I would rather spend them than throw them away. The last time I made such an offer, there was the promise of release and amnesty at the end of service.” I made a pause, letting the implication linger. “I thought about offering no such mercy this time, but even a cornered rat must have a chance at salvation”   
  
My tone went cold.   
  
“A  _ hundred thousand _ people, Akua Sahelian has slaughtered in the ruined city behind your backs,” I said, “And even if that was done with magic, these deaths are on your heads. You are rebels and murderers, the willing tool of a madwoman who met her deserved end. Justice would demand that I sent you all to the gallows right now. But no, I would be merciful. There are nearly two thousand of you here. One for every fifty civilians that have been sacrificed like animals, only to make an army. So I would make an army out of you.”

I swept my gaze over their heads. None dared so much as move.

“Fifty years you would have owed me, one for every father, mother or child that came to seek refuge in this city only to find death.” I paused, letting the silence linger. ”But half of that debt has already been paid by Akua herself, and only half remains on your shoulders. And if at the end of it you will be alive, you will get no amnesty, but you will get your release. Exiled out of Callow, never to return.”

I flicked my wrist and Hakram gestured at an officer, who brought forward a standard and plunged it into dark earth. Gold on red, the cloth was. A golden noose set against crimson, with the words of dead men written beneath. Gallowborne. The best of the worst.   
  
“You can refuse,” I said. “Where that leads you is behind me. Or you can kneel, and make an oath.”   
  
In the end, they knelt.

* * *

The only thing that brought a true smile to my face this day was the progress of my undead troops. It seemed that these days, every positive surprise I had came from Winter. The seven undead I raised from Liesse turned out to be all that I hoped, and more. Since they were raised at different times, I could check the progression of the effect by comparing the behavior depending on the time since raising. And my, how interesting of a progression that was. 

I had seven winterspawn to work with, four of whom were mages, and one of  _ those  _ was among the first pair of wights Archer brought out of Liesse. Back when he was alive he was responsible for one of the outer warding schemas in the left wing of the palace, and as such wore a much fancier robe than an average mage. Fashionably Dead turned out to be the primary case study into how Winter changed the raised ones, and the later examples have only served to confirm what I have learned from him.

Every raised undead seemed to go through several stages as Winter got more accustomed to their bodies. Immediately after being raised, they were capable of recalling all memories from their life, and literally interpreting direct instructions. Within the first bell, they gradually gained more and more comprehension of subtleties, and regained back almost instinctual abilities, such as basics of etiquette and simple spells for mages. After the second, they were capable of distinguishing jokes and hypotheticals from literal statements, and react accordingly. Their ability to follow orders likewise grew throughout, and I suspected that after just two bells I could already send them on tasks that required entirely independent thinking to accomplish.

Of course, I could not let winter-powered undead wander around camp until I was moderately certain they would not start killing people, but that idea did suggest another test. If I could command Zombie the Third with a mere thought, why should I require words to order intelligent undead around? Taking direct control of their bodies turned out to be easy, but actual verbal communication took some time to figure out. I was already thinking of what to do with a team of mages I could coordinate perfectly from across the battlefield, and the possibilities were exciting.

By the time we have been raising the second group of winterspawn from Wights that Archer brought back I realised a more precise measurement of time would be required to properly analyse the process. Relying on bells for long time intervals and heartbeats for short time intervals was simply too limiting. In addition, the question of whose heartbeat to use was rather crucial, as hearts beat at different rates in different people under different levels of exertion. I could now make  _ my _ heart beat at precisely the same rate at all times, but normal people could not, and I would have to delegate most of the actual measurements to them. 

Magic, as usual, had the answer. Masego was kind enough to set up some sort of counting spell - apparently he and his father used those in the laboratory to consistently measure short time intervals. That allowed me to precisely measure how long it took for winterspawn to gain various abilities and see how that timing changed based on various factors. I asked him to divide a single bell into 250 beeps, and each of those into 50 more ticks, creatively named by me after the sounds the spell made. That made a single tick be about the same as a heartbeat, and so quite familiar in duration to the mages I was asking to oversee the newly raised undead. 

Having a way to precisely measure time allowed me to see how the ability of winterspawn to use magic was affected by the process. By asking them to create a gout of flame and measuring the time it took for them to run out of power after an hour of uninterrupted resting, I could get a precise idea of how quickly their magic returned. 

As it happened, it seemed to return at a constant speed. After a whole bell, strength and duration of spells cast by the mage was twice as high as after half a bell after raising. After two, it doubled again, and the process seemed to continue without major changes.

Variety of spells that they could cast also broadened as time went on. The first raised mage became capable of scrying after three bells, and later tests confirmed that exact timing depended on the skill of the practitioner in life, just as the mana regeneration. Masego cracked some numbers, and based on what little we knew of how good they were in life, he estimated they would be back to top shape within a day and a half.

All that I have learned during my nightly vigil, but the most intriguing change actually happened while I was out and about putting out fires in the camp. After three full bells after being raised, winterspawn started to slowly drift apart in their behavior. Their reactions to orders from the guarding mage line changed. Some became visibly anxious, while others responded more positively. One of the early ones became extremely talkative and regaled the guards with tales of his time among the household troops. A fair amount of panicked discussion ensued, until one of the raised mages suggested an explanation himself.

Their personalities were returning.

I managed to find several captives that knew the winterspawn in life among the prisoners we took after the battle, who confirmed that they were behaving like the people they used to know. This left a rather big question. Were they actually returning to life, or were they simply turning into minor fey that parroted the manners and behaviors of the people from their own memories?

I supposed I would just have to wait and see.

* * *

Thief found me right before Evening Bell, as I was beginning to consider going out to look for her myself. She didn’t bother to sneak in this time, striding straight into my tent and dropping into her seat with a grunt. Vivienne took the bottle of aragh on the table and pulled directly at it without asking, setting it down after with a loud thump.   
  
“It could be worse,” Thief finally said.   
  
“I didn’t expect your report to be pleasure reading,” I said. “Not that you ever bother to write those.”   
  
“Get used to it,” she said “I’m not leaving a parchment trail for the Eyes to get their hands on.”   
  
Fair enough, I conceded. I knew better than to put stock in the delusion there weren’t informants in the Tower’s pay remaining in my own legion, much less all the other ones camped by Liesse.   
  
“Start with the worst,” I said.   
  
“Southpool,” she grimaced. “Eldermen and former nobility are meeting. The whole city’s incensed about their levies being wiped out.”   
  
“Rebellion?” I asked.   
  
“Nothing overt,” Thief said, “but if they want to get their hands on weapons, the nobles are the ones to talk to. It’s not a good sign they’re involved.”   
  
I rubbed the bridge of my nose.   
  
“Get the names to Ratface,” I said.   
  
Her face blanked.   
  
“I’m told he has an envoy from the Assassins in his staff,” she said.   
  
The implied question was quite clear.   
  
“Not unless they force me to,” I said. “They get a warning first. I’ve seen enough dead Callowans for several lifetimes. But if they actually rebel, Vivienne, it’ll be more than a handful of old men who end up killed. That I won’t allow.”   
  
She slowly nodded. Whether or not that had convinced her I couldn’t tell.   
  
“The south is a mess, but uprising’s the last thing on their mind,” she told me. “With Dormer and Holden emptied and Liesse… well, I’m not sure there’s a word for what happened to Liesse. Refugees are trickling back to the other two, but with Liesse gone everything in sight of Hengest Lake is lawless. There’s bandit packs forming to claim what food is left, and village militias aren’t above looting other villages to keep their families fed through winter either.”   
  
“I’ll send a detachment south,” I grimaced. “It’ll take a while to get supplies in place, though. Isn’t the governor in Vale doing anything?”   
  
“He’s driving back any refugees camping in his lands with the last of the city guard,” Vivienne darkly said. “City’s under martial law and he’s started rationing.”   
  
Another mess to deal with. There was always another one waiting around the corner.   
  
“Laure?” I pressed.   
  
“The Governess-General has kept order,” Thief said. “My people had some quiet talks with those who wanted to start riots for a spot of looting. Summerholm and Denier are steady too, word’s still only trickling in. Expect trouble when it’s no longer rumours.”   
  
“Ankou?”   
  
“Marshal Grem sent in a garrison force,” she said. “Quiet for now, orcs in armour marching through the streets have a way of making people think twice about throwing stones. And before you ask, the north barely even noticed the rest of Callow is on fire. The Baron of Hedges has been heard saying the chaos to the south is a Praesi issue, not his people’s, and he won’t send even a copper down in aid.”   
  
Those isolationist pricks. Even during the Conquest they’d barely sent any men to fight the Empire. As far as the sheep-fuckers were concerned they were a kingdom of their own, whatever the maps said. Southpooleans might be backwards mud-lickers but at least they pulled their godsdamned weight when catastrophe came calling.   
  
“We’ll see about that,” I muttered. “They’ll be sent an invitation to Laure soon enough.”

  
I leaned back into my chair.   
  
“I need you to do something for me,” I said. “Quietly.”   
  
Blue-grey eyes faced me.   
  
“How quiet are we speaking?” she asked.   
  
“I’ll glamour you a body double and keep her out of sight,” I said.   
  
Thief let out a sharp breath.   
  


“You can do that?”

I nodded.

“I haven't tried it yet, but I am reasonably certain I could manage”, I said “Especially if I use one of the risen mages as the base.”

  
“Why so quiet?”   
  
I reached for the aragh and filled my cup.   
  


“The Tower has gone silent.” I said.

It has already been almost three days since Liesse, and as time went on Empress being entirely silent was getting stranger and stranger. Adjutant told me that all attempts at scrying the Tower were simply declined with polite excuses, which would not be all that unusual if the circumstances were any different. 

“So it has,” said Thief. “How do I fit into this?”

I sighed, and took a large sip.

“It might be just my paranoia playing tricks on me, but I expected Empress to contact me by now. What happened in Liesse...we didn’t end on a good note. And yet she hasn’t. This means either she doesn’t  _ want  _ to, or she  _ can’t _ . Maybe backlash hit her through whatever magical link she was using to talk to us, and she is incapacitated like Black. If something like that has happened, the last thing we want is to accidentally announce to the whole world that the Empress of Praes is down. Or maybe she is running haggard attempting to ensure Empire doesn’t break down in case Black doesn’t make it, and simply didn’t have time to talk to us yet. Then stealth would matter little. But in either case...”

I knocked back the glass, allowing it to hit the table with a satisfying clang.

“I need to know what is happening, and what we can do about it.”

Thief nodded, slowly. 

“So you want me to sneak into the Tower and poke around”, she said. “Tower, probably  _ the _ best protected place on the continent.”

Hm. I thought Thief would have enjoyed a chance to do some actual thieving for once, but the hesitancy in her voice gave me pause. Defences on the Tower should not be fatal, given that we were not enemies of the Empress and did not mean her harm. If accosted by a guard of whatever kind, she could truthfully claim she was sent by me to deliver a personal message to the Empress, which should further reduce the danger.

She should have known this, but this was not the first thought that came to her mind.

“Yep.” I smiled, not letting it show on my face,  “The question is, how quickly can you do it?”

Thief frowned, then nodded, and stood up to leave.

“Should be doable.” she said, moving towards the entrance, “Give me a week to get there once we get to Laure, and a week to get back, and it’d be done.” 

She left my tent, and I stared after her for a while. It was only a hunch, but...was Thief questioning her abilities? That could get bad quickly, in a Named. 

I shook my head. I already had a country to save, I couldn’t start worrying about this too. If I had a quiet minute in the coming months, perhaps I could give Thief a pep talk. 

And in the back of my mind, I realised that were it not for my personality change, I would have never even noticed this. What else might I be failing to notice?

* * *

With most immediate issues plaguing me dealt with, I could turn my eyes to the future. Too long have I walked from one battle to another, with no thought for where I should steer things. But Akua has proved that I could no longer afford to do that. If I only dealt with problems by the time they became too large to ignore or came right at my face, I would be dead by the end of the year, and Callow would fall shortly after.

I either had to find a plan to secure the existence of my kingdom, or abdicate to someone who could. Unfortunately, I didn't know of any other candidates ready to take the throne. And so I sat on the ground in the middle of my tent, pages from my notebook spread around me, and tried to find a way to win the next war. 

Ironic, that for all that stories focused on dastardly villains and plucky heroes crushing one another with might and magic, usually the outcome of a conflict was decided far in advance, by someone sitting in a tent just like mine.

Black seemed to think that Akua's weapon would ruin The Empire, because it would be a perfect bait to bring all other countries to war with Praes. He destroyed it to prevent that. I, however, doubted that Heavens would avoid such a perfect opportunity to deal with Black just because the weapon was technically broken now. After all, why let some facts get in the way of a good crusade?

The question was not wherever the war would come. It was how much time I had to prepare.

Out of the fifty-two weeks in the year, it was currently fourty-eighth. It would take at least a week for the news to reach Procer, and, even if they already had an army gathered and armed, at least another week to march to Red Flower Vales. By that time that crossing should be covered in snow and all but unpassable for an army, which meant we should at least be safe from invasion during the winter. Snow would melt enough to open the pass around eighth week of the next year at the earliest, and so that would be the safe assumption for when Procer would come knocking.

Four weeks this year, another eight in the next, for a total of twelve. That was how long I had to prepare Callow for the harshest invasion since the Conquest. Gods, let it take longer than that.

And those would probably be twelve busiest weeks in my entire life. Just sketching out a list of problems I would have to deal with made me thankful I no longer needed sleep. Maybe I should send King of Winter a gift basket for that, once everything is over. 

Entirely mundane problem of starvation seemed, honestly, hardest to deal with. During their invasion, Summer torched enough of the countryside to make that outcome seem likely in the coming winter. Akua’s folly, of course, removed a hundred thousand mouths I would have had to feed, but it also made all the food stocks she had in Liesse unaccessable. Perhaps we would be able to retrieve them after the city was considered safe, but wherever they would be edible after that much magic coursing through the city was still an open question. And I could not just make food out of thin air.

Then there was the threat of rebellion. Given what news Thief brought me from Southpool… When the news of what really happened here trickled down to the rest of the country, I would be lucky if people did not start hanging Praesi in the streets. And If then some of my nobles wanted to start trouble, and a delegate from Procer promised them independence in return for help when the crusade came… Well, let’s just say I could not entirely trust them to refuse.

But the most important problem by far was where to get enough troops to fend off Procer. But no, it would not be just Procer, would it? If a true Crusade was called, Levant and Ashur would likely join in as well. And Praesians, that pack of backstabbing fools, would likely start trouble at the same bloody time to put pressure on the Empress, knowing she could not afford disagreements with her powerbase. That would mean a fair number of legions would have to be kept back in Praes to keep the peace. By my estimates, when it came to pure troop numbers we could put to defence of the Callowan borders, we could be outnumbered six-to-one or worse. Finding enough sheer power to equalise this, be it in men, magic, or alliances, would be my primary objective during these twelve weeks.

And that brought me to the matter of the other forces that would come with the crusade. The Heroes.

I needed power to beat back the crusade, but a villain getting a large amount of power was a perfect recipy for heroic intervention at the least convenient possible moment. No, I could not win against the crusade based on pure power alone. Even discounting the fact that any crusade attracted Heroes like shit attracted flies, Heavens were trying to kill Black for the last twenty years, and I was still his apprentice. Given that Bard herself took personal notice of him, it seemed that they were finally trying to deal with the issue he posed permanently. We would not be just facing a crusade - we would be facing a crusade tailored specifically to kill us, with every heroic monster taken out of the dark corners of the continent and thrown our way, accompanied by sidekicks with aspects perfectly tailored to break our strengths. And the only way to survive an onslaught like that was to leave no openings, no weakpoints one of the heroes could latch onto to destroy everything, no ready made nooses conveniently worn around the neck. 

And I was wearing just one such noose. My Name, entirely useless for power now, still remained as shreds hanging on my soul. Still capable of controlling my thoughts, turning me astray from the sensible path. I already had Winter to worry about, but at least Winter provided me with power to solve my problems.

That meant my old Name had to go. When I ripped the scaffolding off my soul, Winter tore into Squire, consuming my Name for power. I just had to finish that process.

I sat on the ground in my tent with my eyes closed, with guards around it under strictest orders not to disturb me until morning. With the last light of dusk I reached for where I usually felt my aspects, and pushed Winter into that place. My Name fought back, but the difference in power was simply too great - you could not fight an ocean with a spoon. And with the first light of dawn breaching the horizon, the scouring was complete. I was no longer The Squire.

And a mere quarter bell after that, Black woke up.


End file.
